Wist, Witty, Wot
wist, witi, wot: The verb to wit in the King James Version is interchangeable with to know, and is conjugated with a present wot, and a past wist. This inflection is derived from more complicated forms in the older English, and in post-Elizabethan times has become quite obsolete. (But compare the roots in wisdom, witness.) Wit, then, is simply knowledge, and witty is having knowledge, although the noun and the adjective have become narrowly specialized in modern English (compare the similar evolution of knowing, in its use as an adjective). Even in Elizabethan English, however, the indicative of to wit was becoming displaced by know, and wot and wist together occur only 24 times in the King James Version (not at all in Apocrypha). the English Revised Version has retained all the New Testament examples, but in the Old Testament has altered about half the occurrences to know, but has followed no discoverable rule in so doing (wot retained only in Jos 2:5). the American Standard Revised Version has changed to know throughout (Old Testament and New Testament). The infinitive to wit is still in use (chiefly in legal formulas) before an apposition, and the King James Version has introduced it rather frequently to clarify a construction (Jos 17:1; 1Ki 2:32, etc.), and the Revised Version (British and American) has usually retained it (omitted in Jos 17:1; 2Ch 4:12). In the other uses of this inf. (Gen 24:21; Exo 2:4) it is replaced by to know, while the very obsolete expression in 2Co 8:1, the King James Version We do you to wit (i.e. We cause you to know), has become in the Revised Version (British and American) We make known unto you.
The noun wit is found in Psa 107:27, at their wits’ (the King James Version wit’s) end, for , hokhmah, wisdom, technical skill; compare the Revised Version margin All their wisdom is swallowed up. The meaning is their skilled seamanship cannot cope with the danger (the phrase is very commonly misapplied). Wit occurs also 1 Esdras 4:26 (, dianoia, mind); 2 Esdras 5:9 (sensus, here intelligence); Sirach 31:20 (, psuche, soul, with the force of reason).
Witty is found in the King James Version, the Revised Version margin Pro 8:12, witty inventions (, mezimmah, discretion (so the Revised Version (British and American)); if and is not read in this verse, translate discrete knowledge). In Judith 11:23 occurs witty in thy words (, agathos, good, here probably = thou hast spoken sound sense). The Wisdom of Solomon 8:19 the King James Version has a witty child, the Revised Version (British and American) a child of parts, margin goodly (, euphues, well grown, of a good disposition, clever). Wittingly occurs in Gen 48:14 (, sakhal, act intelligently).